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NTP & Precision Time: How Clocks Stay Synchronized

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Why clock synchronization is hard

Clocks drift. A computer's crystal oscillator drifts by milliseconds per day. For distributed systems — databases, logs, certificates, kerberos tickets, trading platforms — clocks must agree or transactions corrupt, logs confuse, and security breaks.

NTP (Network Time Protocol) synchronizes clocks over IP networks to within milliseconds. PTP achieves nanoseconds for applications that need it. Both face the same challenge: network delay is variable and must be accounted for.

Packets in motion — click to inspect:

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